Ridiculous Summer Project #1: The Kitchen

I have a problem, somewhat the opposite of the idea "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."  In this particular scenario I'd like to blame it on the evolution of me, which is that for 15 years of my life I was used to having 3 months off each year during summer in which to dream up huge projects that would fill all that free time.  And for the past few years I've spent my summer months consumed with home projects.  At my age it is called "nesting".

So to make a long story short; the story being that the condo that I've been painting and furnishing for the past two years is all wrong and I need to fix it and Chad doesn't understand but he loves me anyway; I have several large projects that I hope to accomplish before my birthday.  And one of them is the kitchen.

You know... this one.

So here are the issues:

• The paint color that I had custom mixed drives me insane... too dark.
• Not enough cabinet space, and I hate the color.
• The ceiling track lighting have expensive lightbulbs that are hard to replace and they heat up the room more than they light it.
• The bar stools... broken, hate them, need more.

And here is the plan:

• New paint (Silver Strand: Behr)

• New cabinets (and trust me I've weighed the pros and cons of replacing vs painting): White Custom Cabinets - that will go all the way to the ceiling: IKEA featuring a side open cabinet which I'm very excited about.

• New track lighting - I haven't decided what to go with yet but it will use regular lightbulbs.
• New barstools: IKEA

And if that isn't enough to be getting on with, and breaking a carefully planned and saved budget - I'm also looking into replacing the 10 year old dishwasher.  That was first on the list until a new water heater broke into our emergency appliance replacement fund.